For a while, Dark Angel (AKA I Come in Peace) almost feels like two separate films. The first follows Dolph Lundgren’s tough as nails cop joining up with a naïve FBI agent to hunt down the drug baron who killed his partner. The second sees an overly large humanoid alien literally arriving on earth with a bang and immediately going on a killing spree whilst being pursued by an equally humongous extra-terrestrial. However, both storylines are actually connected by the drugs bust where Lundgren’s partner was killed.
Dark Angel is very much an action movie of its time. Lots of punching people in the head on moodily lit, rain soaked streets in a city under perpetual nighttime. Director Craig R. Baxley (The Warriors) cherry-picks the best bits of 80s blockbusters, particularly The Terminator, to provide something that is more fun than it has any right to be. There is very little here to tax the brain. People talk in exposition on a regular basis and when things start getting a bit slow, you know you’re guaranteed an explosion just around the corner.
However, none of this hides the fact that Dark Angel is a very derivative and not particularly well-made film.
This review originally appeared in FilmInk.
John Noonan 